Manfred
Encyclopedia
Manfred is a dramatic poem written in 1816
1816 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* This year was known as the "Year Without a Summer" after Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies the previous year and cast enough ash in to the atmosphere to block out the sun and cause...
–1817
1817 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* February 28 — Lord Byron writes a letter to Thomas Moore and includes in it his poem, "So, we'll go no more a roving"...
by Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
. It contains supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama
Closet drama
A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or, sometimes, out loud in a small group. A related form, the "closet screenplay," developed during the 20th century.-Form:...
. Manfred was adapted musically by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
in 1852, in a composition entitled Manfred: Dramatic Poem with music in Three Parts, and later by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
in his Manfred Symphony
Manfred Symphony
The Manfred Symphony in B minor, Op. 58, is a programmatic symphony composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between May and September 1885. It is based on the poem "Manfred" written by Lord Byron in 1817...
. Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
was impressed by the poem's depiction of a super-human being, and wrote some music for it. Byron wrote this "metaphysical drama", as he called it, after his marriage failed in scandal amidst charges of sexual improprieties and an incestuous affair between Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Attacked by the press and ostracized by London society, Byron fled England for Switzerland in 1816 and never returned. Because Manfred was written immediately after this and because Manfred regards a main character tortured by his own sense of guilt for an unmentionable offense, some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. Byron commenced this work in late 1816, only a few months after the famed ghost-story sessions which provided the initial impetus for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
. The supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
references are made clear throughout the poem. In one scene, for example, (Act III, Scene IV, Interior of the Tower), Manfred recalls traveling through time (or astral projection
Astral projection
Astral projection is an interpretation of out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of an "astral body" separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it...
traveling) to Caesar's palace, "and fill'd up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries...".
Plot
Manfred is a FaustFaust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
ian noble living in the Bernese Alps
Bernese Alps
The Bernese Alps are a group of mountain ranges in the western part of the Alps, in Switzerland. Although the name suggests that they are located in the Bernese Oberland region of the canton of Bern, portions of the Bernese Alps are in the adjacent cantons of Valais, Lucerne, Obwalden, Fribourg and...
. Internally tortured by some mysterious guilt, which has to do with the death of his most beloved, Astarte, he uses his mastery of language and spell-casting to summon seven spirits, from whom he seeks forgetfulness. The spirits, who rule the various components of the corporeal world, are unable to control past events and thus cannot grant Manfred's plea. For some time, fate
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
prevents him from escaping his guilt through suicide. At the end, Manfred dies defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. Throughout the poem, he succeeds in challenging all authoritative powers he comes across, and chooses death over submitting to spirits of higher powers. Manfred directs his final words to the Abbot, remarking, "Old man! 't is not so difficult to die."
Biographic relevance
Manfred was written shortly after the failure of Byron's marriage to Annabelle Millbanke, who most likely accused him of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta LeighAugusta Leigh
Augusta Maria Byron, later Augusta Maria Leigh , styled "The Honourable" from birth, was the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron, the poet Lord Byron's father, by his first wife, Amelia Osborne .-Early...
. At the time, he had exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
d himself permanently from England and was living at the Villa Diodati
Villa Diodati
The Villa Diodati is a manor in Cologny close to Lake Geneva. It is most famous for having been the summer residence of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, John Polidori and others in 1816, where the basis for the classical horror stories Frankenstein and The Vampyre was laid.Originally called...
in Switzerland. Most of Manfred was written on a tour through the Bernese Alps
Bernese Alps
The Bernese Alps are a group of mountain ranges in the western part of the Alps, in Switzerland. Although the name suggests that they are located in the Bernese Oberland region of the canton of Bern, portions of the Bernese Alps are in the adjacent cantons of Valais, Lucerne, Obwalden, Fribourg and...
in September 1816. The third act was rewritten in February 1817 since Byron was not happy with its first version.
Manfred shows some influence by Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
, which Byron only read or heard in translation, but it is by no means a simple copy.
In performance
Manfred was not originally intended for the stage; it was written to be a dramatic poem or as Byron called it a "metaphysical" drama.Manfred has received much more attention on stage for its musical treatments by Tchaikovsky and Schumann than it has on its own dramatic terms. It was later famously played by Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps was an English actor and theatre manager...
. There are no recorded full stagings in Britain in the twentieth century, but readings are more popular, partly because of the difficulty of staging a play set in the Alps, partly because of the works nature as a closet-drama that was never actually intended for the stage in the first place. The exceptional size of the role of Manfred also makes the play difficult to cast. There was a production on BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
in 1988, however, which starred Ronald Pickup
Ronald Pickup
-Life and career:Pickup was born in Chester, England, the son of Daisy and Eric Pickup, who was a lecturer. Pickup was educated at The King's School, Chester, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and became an Associate Member of RADA.His television work began with an episode...
as Manfred.
Characters
- Manfred Trinzcek
- ChamoisChamoisThe chamois, Rupicapra rupicapra, is a goat-antelope species native to mountains in Europe, including the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, the European Alps, the Tatra Mountains, the Balkans, parts of Turkey, and the Caucasus. The chamois has also been introduced to the South Island of New Zealand...
Hunter - AbbotAbbotThe word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
of St. Maurice - Manuel
- Herman
- Witch of the Alps
- Arimanes
- Nemesis
- The Destinies
- The Seven Spirits
Scenes
- ACT I
- SCENE I: MANFRED alone. -- Scene, a Gothic Gallery. -- Time, Midnight.
- SCENE II: The Mountain of the Jungfrau. -- Time, Morning.-- MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.
- ACT II
- SCENE I: A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps. MANFRED and the CHAMOIS HUNTER.
- SCENE II: A lower Valley in the Alps.-- A Cataract.
- SCENE III: The Summit of the Jungfrau Mountain.
- SCENE IV: The Hall of ARIMANES.-- ARIMANES on his Throne, a Globe of Fire, surrounded by the SPIRITS.
- ACT III
- SCENE I: A Hall in the Castle of Manfred.
- SCENE II: Another Chamber. MANFRED and HERMAN.
- SCENE III: The Mountains.-- The Castle of MANFRED at some distance.-- A Terrace before a Tower.-- Time, Twilight. HERMAN, MANUEL, and other Dependants of MANFRED.
- SCENE IV: Interior of the Tower.
Manfred in literature
It is interesting to note that the character Manfred was mentioned by Alexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
in his novel The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas's most popular work. He completed the work in 1844...
, where the Count declares: "No, no, I wish to do away with that mysterious reputation that you have given me, my dear viscount; it is tiresome to be always acting Manfred. I wish my life to be free and open."
Indeed, the Count of Monte Cristo is quite similar to Manfred, in that he wants to keep his past a secret, feels superior to social conventions, and is following an agenda that runs counter to the social mores.
On page 61 of The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon, first published in 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, it is about a woman, Oedipa Maas, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero...
by Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Di Presso seems to refer (perhaps by accident) to Metzger as Manfred.
Manfred's oft-quoted speech from Act II Scene 1 which begins "Thinks't thou existence doth depend on time?" is quoted on page 351 of The Masters of Solitude
The Masters of Solitude
The Masters of Solitude, is a 1978 science fiction novel written by Marvin Kaye and Parke Godwin, which is also the first novel in a trilogy of the same name. The other two novels in the series are Wintermind, 1982 and A Cold Blue Light, 1983....
by Marvin Kaye
Marvin Kaye
Marvin Nathan Kaye is an American mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and horror author and editor. He has also edited numerous horror anthologies, such as H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine...
and Parke Godwin.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky mentions the poem in Notes from Underground
Notes from Underground
Notes from Underground is an 1864 short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel...
when the narrator states, "I received countless millions and immediately gave them away for the benefit of humanity, at the same moment confessing before the crowd all my infamies, which, of course, were not mere infamies, but also contained within them a wealth of 'the lofty and the beautiful' of something Manfred-like" (Dostoyevsky, page 57. Bantam Books 2005)
Manfred in ballet
"In Byron’s poem, the hero, a superhuman character, is doomed by fate to destroy those he loves. In vain he undertakes to find Astarte, his ideal spirit who alone has the power to assuage the feeling of guilt with which he is obsessed.The argument for Manfred, in the choreographic version, lets the imagination run free using this basic theme to which references borrowed from other autographical poems by Byron have been associated. Inspiration has also been taken from the libretto that Tchaikovsky produced from the original work.
The characters and events forming the storyline come from the life of Byron himself. Therefore, we meet the loves and hates of his youth, his tireless quest for wisdom and peace, in friendship, in love, and in patriotic fervour."
Programme for Manfred, Palais des Sports, 1979.
External links
- Official Fondation Rudolf Noureev site for the ballet
- "ManfredManfredManfred is a dramatic poem written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama...
et l'esprit", oil on canvas by Durupt, Musée de la Vie romantiqueMusée de la Vie RomantiqueThe Musée de la Vie romantique stands at the foot of Montmartre hill in the IXe arrondissement, 16 rue Chaptal, Paris, France in a 1830 hôtel particulier facing two twin-studios, a greenhouse, a small garden, and a paved courtyard. The museum is open daily except Monday. Permanent collections are...
, Paris